Phileas Fogg travelled “around the world in 80 days” in Jules Verne’s same-name novel, which happens to be one of my favourite books. I don’t have quite as much time as he did – just two months, in fact – but then my BBI Summer Tour is “only” travelling around Brandenburg. “Only” was what I thought, to start with, at least. Now the longer I’m on the road, the more I notice many stories my homeland has to tell. A trip around the world would be hard put to keep up.

Today, we’re in Guben, in the Spree-Neisse district, nearly 150 kilometres south-east of Berlin. Here, at stop number seven out of 17, we are fielding questions from locals interested to know all about the new Capital City Airport. When will it be ready? In autumn 2011. What are we working on at the moment? The BBI terminal.

But because I’m rather curious, too, I naturally have some questions to ask back – about Guben. Guben is not just a border town; Guben is the border. When the Polish-German border was drawn along the River Oder and Lusatia’s River Neisse at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the part of the town east of the Neisse, including the historical centre, became the Polish town of Gubin. You know, I think I’ll pay a visit to my Polish friends after work. Two countries in one afternoon – even Phileas Fogg would have been impressed!

print version berlin-airport.de (Copyright Berliner Flughäfen)